


Homecoming

by hunters_retreat



Category: Dark Angel, Dark Angel/Supernatural - Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Alec has Powers, Crossover, Dean is the Original, Incest, M/M, Manticore loves the Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:08:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4809134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunters_retreat/pseuds/hunters_retreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming home for the first time in five years wasn't easy for Alec Singer.  His Pops, Bobby Singer, always made sure Alec was welcome but fourteen years of homecoming hadn't erased what Manticore had taught him in ten.  Still, it was good to be home again even if the circumstances were less than great.    With nothing to lose, Alec and Bobby decided to let a pair of hunters in on their secret.  Sam and Dean Winchester are less than thrilled to learn that the only family they had left had kept something from them, but there was a mystery to solve. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the whole damn thing didn't come back to a place Sam and Dean were happy never to visit again, an asylum full of nightmares. And Roosevelt was only the first step of the journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
   

 

 

 

It looked the same; clunkers lining the front and side yards and the house needed a new paint job. He didn’t really think it would look different – it would take more than five years to change the man living in that house - but it felt good to come home and see it with his own eyes. Alec Singer took a deep breath and smiled, letting off the tension that always came with flying. It felt too much like a cage, the airplane, and Alec couldn’t relax into the flight no matter how hard he tried. It was just another of his idiosyncrasies, another thing to pile up at the feet of Manticore and the training he’d had there.

 

A dog barked in the back and Alec set his feet in motion. The man inside would be waiting. He was probably fussing around last minute to make the place look a little neater than normal, afraid to scare Alec off by rushing to the door and meeting him there. He always let Alec take his own time to get to the front door; a consideration that Alec appreciated.

 

How the man had managed to find an eight year old transgenic and keep him, Alec still didn’t know. Somehow, in those first few days after the escape, when he’d been trying to keep low, Bobby Singer had wiggled his way into Alec’s life. He hadn’t wanted that but Bobby was unlike  
anyone he’d ever met. It took two years for Bobby to finally convince Alec to let him get papers saying he was Bobby’s son and Alec had never looked back from that day. It didn’t mean it was easy, but he loved Bobby in ways Manticore had tried to train out of him.

 

Alec didn’t bother knocking.  Bobby had broken him of that habit too, reminding him time and time again that this was his home; it was his right to be there whenever he wanted. Today, after being gone for so long, it felt strange but he wouldn’t disappoint the old man by falling back  
into old bad habits already.

 

The inside of the house was as cluttered as the outside, but here there were piles of books everywhere. Alec smiled at the two brand new bookcases – empty – that stared across the room at him. Movement to the right made him turn his head and right there was the reason Alec was still alive, still sane. “Hey Pops.”

 

“Son.”

 

Bobby’s arms were open wide and Alec didn’t hesitate to stop into his father’s embrace. It’d been two years since Bobby had been able to make the trip overseas to Alec’s school and he’d missed seeing him. Talking on the phone wasn’t the same, but the choice to go to school outside of the US had been the safest thing and they’d both agreed to that. Now though, he was out – for the summer at least – and there were things to be dealt with.

 

Bobby pulled back, his hand cupping the side of Alec’s face as he did so. “Well now didn’t you turn out to be a looker.”

 

“Pops,” Alec looked away because there really wasn’t much to say to that. When you were lab-made being attractive came with the territory.  He wondered if his genetic donor got hassled for it the way Alec sometimes did, but then he remembered Bobby’s stories and knew that the hassles Dean Winchester got were generally of his own making.

 

“Alright,” he said, diverting his own thoughts from the Winchesters, “give me the flask and let’s get this over with.”

 

Bobby handed him the flask of holy water and Alec just took a long pull of it. It was unnecessary. He’d walked through a devil’s trap on the way in and passed all the defensive wards that Bobby had in the house but it was almost a tradition and he handed it back to Bobby with a  
smile.   “You mind if I take my bags up to the room?”

 

Bobby looked at him for a moment, something darker lurking in his eyes before he smiled again. “You do remember where your room is, don’t you?”

 

Alec let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in. He knew, in his head, that this was still home, that Bobby would always be his pops, but telling himself that over and over again did nothing to erase the tension. Not until he heard it from Bobby’s mouth each time. He grabbed his two bags and started towards the stairs.

 

“Alec…” Bobby paused as he waited for Alec to turn. It was still lingering, whatever darkness was haunting him, but it wasn’t something new and Alec understood. “It’s good to have you home, son.”

 

“It’s good to be back Pops.”

 

**

 

After unpacking his things, and then they ate a late breakfast together as Bobby filled him in on the hunts he was supervising. He was expecting a call on the LEO lines at some point but he’d set aside the day for nothing but them. And the visitors Bobby was expecting.

 

Alec tried not to think about it too hard. He’d spent a lot of time over the years, hearing stories about the other hunters, though until he’d gone to England he’d never met another hunter. Bobby made sure to keep him clear of them. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust hunters , but the few he trusted enough with something like this knew too much about other things. About the Winchesters. It was one thing for Bobby to take a kid and adopt him. It might have got a few stares but nothing more than that. However he wasn’t just a kid. He was a transgenic, a human hybrid that was stronger and faster than any human could be. And he shared the same looks, the same face as his genetic donor, Dean Winchester.

 

In Manticore it wasn’t something to think about. All of the X5-49 series had the same face. In the real world, a hunter who met Alec would have him trussed up ten ways from Sunday to try to figure out what he was.

 

He got up from the table and paced back and forth. Perhaps, this plan of action had been a mistake. What if-

 

“Alec, stop pacing. You’re moving too fast and you’re making me dizzy.”

 

Alec stopped in his tracks and swore softly. He was normally better about hiding his speed. Bobby looked amused though and he gave him a half smile. It just showed how much he trusted Bobby, that he let himself forget when they were alone.   “Sorry, I just … you think this is the right thing to do Pops? To bring them into this?”

 

“Alec, if I didn’t think they’d be able to deal with this I wouldn’t have called them.”

 

“Yeah, I-” he stopped talking as he heard the car pulling into the driveway. Bobby hadn’t heard it yet but he must have realized why he stopped talking because he was out of his chair and looking out the window.

 

“Too late for second guessing now boy. They’re here.”

 

“I should go upstairs then, right?”

 

“Nah, you can wait in here. I’ll talk to the boys in the library.”

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“It’ll keep you from straining those ears of yours, trying to hear through the doors and half the house.”

 

Alec smiled, then turned away, reaching into the fridge to hand Bobby three beers. He still didn’t know how Bobby managed to get holy water in the beer but he let his pops have his paranoia. Wasn’t like they’d never had unwanted visitor before anyway.

 

Alec took up residence in the corner of the room to make sure no one could see him, but he could hear Bobby opening the door just fine. “Well look what the cat drug in.”

 

He listened to the murmurs of ‘hello’s and ‘how are ya’s, trying not to be thrown by the voice that was too much like his own.   It wasn’t the same. Alec didn’t think he could drink enough whiskey or smoke enough cigarettes to get the gravel in his voice but it sounded good on Dean. He was dying to peek around the corner but he knew better than that. Bobby needed to explain the situation before Alec could let them see him.

 

They were talking about their last hunt and it sounded like Sam got the hell beaten out of him. Dean was pacing. He knew it was Dean because his voice was agitated as he talked, moving from side to side to stem the nervous energy he got when his brother was hurt. Sam made a pained grunt and Alec could almost see Dean’s reaction in his head. He’d listened to too many stories of his genetic donor as a child and he felt the same protective instinct when it came to Sam. He didn’t know how Dean managed to hunt with his brother if it always felt like that. It made him long for the days of escape, before he and Jack had been separated.

 

“Dean, get back here!”

 

It was the only warning Alec got before Dean came barging into the kitchen. He could run, he knew that, but the damage was already done.

 

“What the hell are you?”

 

Alec had to give him credit. He barely had time to assess the situation before he was ready to spring with a gun in hand. Every line of Dean’s  
body was aligned for a fight and Alec just held his hands up, trying to hold him at bay until Bobby could fix this.  
  
“I can explain.”

 

“Dean?” Sam was at his brother’s side a second later, his eyes wide as he looked at Alec, only drawing his weapon a second later than  
Dean had. It hit like a bullet, the shock at seeing Sam for the first time. He was familiar, like an old worn coat, and Alec had to stop himself  
from crossing the room. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, except he had a need to be closer to Sam.

 

“Maybe you should have waited in your room,” Bobby said as he came up behind Sam and Dean.

 

“You think, Pops?”

 

Bobby gave him a small smile as he walked around the Winchesters and came to stand beside Alec. “Dean, he’s why you’re here.”

 

“What? You couldn’t tell us you caught a doppelganger over the phone?”

 

“What do you need us to do with it, Bobby?”

 

“It has a name,” Alec tried to cut into the conversation.

 

“Yeah, dead meat,” Dean snapped at him.

 

“Stop it! All three of you. Alec isn’t what you think he is. He’s… well he’s not human, but he’s not a monster either.”

 

“You sure of that Bobby?” Dean asked.

 

“Have been for the last fourteen years.”

 

Alec let out a deep sigh. It wasn’t the way Bobby had wanted this conversation to go. He’d wanted to explain everything the way it had happened, why he’d decided to keep Alec a secret from the others, but the whole plan had been blown to hell by Dean’s overprotective side.

 

Alec turned his back on them then, moving towards the freezer. He pulled out one of the ice packs and handed it to Bobby. “It’s what he came in for. Might as well give it to him.”

 

Bobby looked at it with a twist of a smile before he looked up at the brothers. “Sam, Dean, just put the weapons down and let me explain.”

 

Alec could see Dean was having a hard time backing down, but Sam put his gun away and placed a hand on his brother’s. “Why don’t we all have a seat?” As much as Sam had just been in the other room bitching about Dean’s mother hen act, he looked up at Bobby as he sat at  
the kitchen table, extending his hand for the ice pack Bobby held. Bobby handed it to him and that seemed to settle Dean because his gun was away and he was looking at Bobby to answer.

 

Alec hopped up onto the kitchen counter, well aware that any move he made towards Sam or Dean would be construed as hostile. Bobby took the seat that put him between Alec and the Winchesters in the same way that Dean sat between Sam and Alec. It was an interesting dance but one that Alec hoped they would get over soon.

 

“So Bobby, fourteen years?” Sam asked.

 

“Yeah,” Bobby said, looking back up at Alec for a second before turning back to the other two. “Fourteen years ago I was coming back from a hunt. I’ll make a real long story short here. I found Alec. I’d met you and your Dad a few times by then and I knew he could have been Dean’s twin, except he was about six years too young. I did all the tests and nothing bothered him; holy water, salt, silver. I kept him close and started looking into it, trying to figure out who he was. What he was. I interviewed the staff that was at the hospital when Dean was born to see if anything weird had happened but if anything had no one remembered it at that point. I knew John didn’t have any more kids and everything was a dead end. It’d been, maybe three months at that point, and then Alec started talking to me.”

 

Bobby looked at him again, like he was reminding him it was the last chance to back out. They were already too far in to stop now though.  
“Yeah, Pops,” he said to the unspoken question.

 

Bobby nodded and turned his attention to Sam and Dean. “Alec was created by a government project called Manticore. They were trying to  
created super soldiers by using human DNA and combining it with animal DNA.”

 

“So you’re like half pit-bull or something?” Dean asked.

 

“Cat actually. The pit-bulls wouldn’t stop sniffing each other’s butts.”

 

Dean snorted and Sam smiled. Alec had to look away because he did know that smile even if he hadn’t seen it in years. It was something else  
they’d have to deal with, but he’d have to wait until Bobby finished his story.

 

“Alec escaped the facility. He was only eight years old and I took him in. I knew if John got word of him that it would be the end of Alec. He’d see him as a threat to Dean so I kept it quiet. And once Alec started talking and I learned a little about the people that had created him, I kept it even quieter. These weren’t the type of people that let go of something they called theirs.”

 

“They still aren’t.”

 

“What makes you think this place is still around?” Dean asked.

 

“Because I know what to look for. It’s like a normal person asking you how you know ghosts are out there.”

 

Dean smirked. “And how did you get such a pretty face?”

 

Alec rolled his eyes and found a companion in Sam’s exasperated expression. “I have no idea how they chose the genetic donors.”

 

“Anyway,” Bobby cut them off, “I called you here because we need some help.”

 

“You need help?” Dean asked. “You dropping this on us just because you need the help?”

 

Dean looked offended at that, in Bobby’s lack of trust in them and Alec could understand that, even if he didn’t like it. He knew that he was the only secret Bobby kept from Sam and Dean and it hadn’t been easy on him.

 

“What would you do if it was Sam?” Alec asked.

 

“What?”

 

“If it had been Sam, would you have told anyone? Or would you have kept him hidden away so no one could hurt him?”

 

Dean looked over at his brother and Sam was obviously torn between the same disbelief in Bobby’s secret and understanding why he did  
it.

 

“So what is so important you decided to break fourteen years of silence?” Dean finally asked.

 

“Alec?” There was permission in Bobby’s voice and something like fear. He understood that. He wasn’t too happy about this ability that  
seemed to creep up on him. It was the first time Bobby had seen it though. Alec had just talked to him over the phone in stilted hints and  
allusions.

 

Alec took a deep breath and focused on the table they were sitting around. He didn’t know what it was but he felt something inside himself lift and then the table was coming up off the floor. Sam was pushing his chair away from the table and Dean stood up so fast his chair crashed to the floor behind him.

 

“Think that’s good boy,” Bobby said as he looked up at him.

 

“Yeah Pops. I think they got the idea.”

 

“How long ago did it start?” Sam asked.

 

Alec shrugged but when Bobby coughed he rolled his eyes. “Nine months ago. At first I didn’t realize what was happening. I wouldn’t be paying attention and something would be just out of my grasp and then it would be there. It took a while before I really saw it for the first time. I realized I’d been doing it a while when I recognized the push I feel when I do it.”

 

“Why do you need our help?” Dean asked.

 

“Because I don’t know why it’s happening to me. We know how Azazel got to you and the others but I was someone’s freaking build-a-bear.  
How the hell would a demon even know about me to get to me?”

 

“Dean,”

 

“Sam.”

 

“How much control do you have over it?” Sam asked.

 

“I’ve got a good handle on it,” Alec looked at Dean while he was talking though. “You don’t get a new weapon in your arsenal and refuse to learn how to use it. It made sense to learn to control it and make sure I didn’t hurt anyone by accident.”

 

“So you want us to help you hunt down Manticore and find out why this is happening to you?”

 

Alec took a deep breath. “Actually, there’s more to it. Sorry Pops, I didn’t feel like I could talk about this part over the phone and part of it I really didn’t understand until Sam walked in the door.”

 

Dean was on his feet between Sam and Alec before he could say anything else and Alec just watched with a mixture of determination and  
envy. “You have visions, right? I think … I might have had one. It involved the transgenic I escaped with.”

 

“Transgenic?”

 

“Those of us that looked human. Not all of Manticore’s creations did. I’m an X5 model. I was known as X5-494. The boy I escaped with, X5-414, I think he’s in trouble. I was at home between classes one day when I got this piercing headache. I was suddenly somewhere else and he was there. I saw his barcode first so I knew it was him. Someone was chasing him and he was on the run.”

 

“What else do you remember?”

 

“I have a notebook with the details. I wrote it all down as soon as I woke up. At first I thought it was just some oddity, you know? I have a few. But it happened three other times, the same man, the same sense of running. It has to mean something.”

 

“Alright. We can start with that,” Sam said with a nod.

 

“Here’s the part you’re not gonna like,” Alec said as he looked at Bobby. “You know in all the years you told me about them, you never showed me a picture.”

 

“Don’t have any.” Bobby pointed out.

 

“Yeah, so I didn’t realize what I was seeing in my vision. I would have called if I’d realized.”

 

“Realized what?”

 

“Jack? The X5 I escaped with, is Sam’s double.”

 

“What are you saying?”

 

“Sam is also a genetic donor.”

  
**

Sam poured over the notebooks with an intensity that Alec wasn’t sure how to address. He wasn’t sure if it was the shock of his words or if it was the fact that it was psychic related. Bobby and Dean had taken off to grab them some food and a shitload of newspapers. When his father didn’t know what to do, he turned to research. With nothing clear to research, he hit the newspapers to see if anything stood out.  
  
“You need anything?” Alec asked as he reached into the fridge and grabbed a soda.  
  
“Nah,” Sam said as he looked up. He barely gave Alec a glance before looking back to the notebooks. Alec felt completely unnecessary but he wanted to be there if Sam had questions and he had a feeling Bobby wanted to be alone with Dean to hash out whatever negative feelings that were between them. Alec took a long drink of the soda as he looked out the window.  
  
“They’ll be fine,” Sam said, suddenly closer than Alec expected.  
  
He hated that hunters could sneak up on him like that. He was usually better about it, but hunters were damn good at moving quietly – use to dealing with creatures that had better hearing than humans – and he was too relaxed at home to be on guard like he should be around a stranger.  
  
“Yeah? Dean didn’t look too ‘fine’ when they left.”  
  
“Look, Bobby’s been really important to us. It’s hard to know he’s kept something like this the whole time we knew him. Dean will come around.”  
  
“And you?”  
  
Sam smiled slightly. “You were right. Dean would have done the same damn thing if it meant protecting me. Hell, he lied to our father about my visions for as long as he could.”  
  
“And the rest of it?”  
  
Sam let out a bark of a laugh. “The rest, I haven’t had time to process. The visions I can handle. That’s something I know. The idea of another me out there somewhere? It’s not really something I can handle yet.”  
  
“So, anything in my vision hitting you?”  
  
“No, but something, there’s something to this that’s setting off alarms in my head. I feel like I know something and I just can’t remember it.”  
  
“I just wrote down what I remembered, how it felt after the fact and what I was doing before hand. I was trying to understand it and then I remembered Bobby telling me about you. I did a little research online but most of that was bullshit so I stopped. I just decided to look for patterns. Nothing yet, but I don’t think they’ve stopped.”  
  
“We’ll figure it out. Hopefully, before your friend is in any real trouble.”  
  
The door bangs open behind them and Alec was across the room, as quickly as he could be, ready for a fight. “Damn it, Dean,” Alec sighed when it was just the other hunter.  
  
“Sorry, son,” Bobby came up behind Dean, arms full of newspapers while Dean was carrying dinner. “I warned him that you were a bit skittish but I think he wanted to see it himself.”  
  
“Yeah, that was something else,” Sam said, watching Alec. “I’ve never seen anything human move that fast.”  
  
“Guess that’s where the feline DNA comes in,” Alec said with a grin when he realized Sam wasn’t scared by the movement. It’d taken him a while to get used to hiding his speed and Bobby’s initial reaction to it, his wide-eyed fear – was still a stark memory in his head.  
  
He’d been sure Bobby would kick him out then, leave him to the wolves, or worse, take him to the authorities. The hunter hadn’t though, he’d just asked Alec to tell him all the things that made him different from an ordinary. It’d taken a while to fill out the list as Alec learned what was abnormal. He still ticked off new things to add to the list from time to time. Just two months ago he’d realized his ability to hold his breath underwater far surpassed that of the ordinaries in his school.  
  
“Sam, time to eat. Put that thing away,” Dean said, setting a take out container in front of his brother. Alec smiled as Sam tucked a bookmark into his place and set it away from the food that was covering the table.  
  
“You gonna come join us?” Dean asked after claiming a seat beside his brother. Alec knew it was a first step and he nodded, taking the seat across from Sam.  
  
“Anything new in the papers?” he asked Bobby.  
  
“Not yet, but we’re just getting started. Barely had time to read the titles before Dean was complaining about his stomach.”  
  
“Yeah, because you’ve never gotten so lost in your research that you forgot about food? I’m surprised he was able to get you away so fast, Pops.”  
  
Bobby laughed at that and Alec let out a relieved sigh. Whatever tension had been in his shoulders when he’d walked out the door with Dean, it was gone. When he looked up Sam was smiling with an ‘I told you so’ look on his face.  
  
“You’re going to be insufferable, aren’t you?”  
  
“Probably,” Sam agreed.  
  
**  
  
“What exactly are you doing?” Dean asked as he walked into the library.  
  
Alec looked at the book in his hand and shook his head. He had no idea how Bobby managed to find anything when Alec was away at school. “Every time I come home I have to straighten up his books for him. This place is a disaster.”  
  
Dean snorted. “So you’re his librarian?”  
  
Alec shrugged. “We weren’t allowed to have anything of our own in Manticore. When I came here, I was trying to find a way to be useful, you know, to keep him from kicking me out? It was even worse than this back then and I decided to organize it all for him. He came home that night and had a fit. Thought for sure I was a goner, but someone called and needed some information and I found him the book immediately. He realized it was a good set-up and started bringing in books from all over the house. He got me a couple bookcases. Ever since, I come home, find a few bookcases and stacks of books all over the place. It’ll take a while, but I’ll get him organized before too long.”  
  
“Dean, I think I got it,” Sam called from the other room.  
  
He and Dean walked into the kitchen to see Sam still poring over the notebook. “You still have that journal we got from Roosevelt Assylum?”  
  
“Yeah, why?”  
  
“You read it a couple times, right?”  
  
Dean looked uncomfortable about that, like Sam had caught him out doing something naughty. It was amusing to see Dean blush like that. “Yeah.”  
  
“You remember anything in there about this?”  
  
“No, I’m sure I would have remembered reading about genetic engineering in a psychologist’s notes.”  
  
“What about Manticore?”  
  
Dean went still and Alec could see his eyes moving, tracking as if there was a page in front of him. “Holy hell.” Before anyone could say anything else Dean was moving to the front door.  
  
“What is it?” Bobby asked Sam.  
  
“I don’t remember. I just remember thinking it was odd that there was a mythological creature in Ellicot’s journal. Dean was the one that was fascinated by it though.”  
  
“Yeah, well he would be.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
Bobby looked at Sam with a shake of his head. “Idjits. After what happened to you in there, did you think he wouldn’t be interested? You really think because Dean didn’t talk about it that he stopped trying to understand how the kid brother he’d practically raised could have done that to him?”  
  
“Got it,” Dean came in before Sam could answer that, though Alec could see the pain flash in Sam’s eyes at the mention of it.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Give me a minute,” Dean said, flipping through the pages. It was towards the end that he stopped. “There. Manticore. It was a science group that rented out part of the facility towards the end of Ellicott’s project. They were the ones that helped him add on his secret room.” Dean looked up at Sam. “We were only looking for the one room. Who knows what else they could have done if they’d bought Ellicot’s silence?”  
  
“You really think this is the same thing?” Sam asked.  
  
“We’ve got the name of a couple scientists here. Looks like we might have someplace to start with this,” Dean said with the first real smile Alec had seen. When he looked at Alec it was still there. “We’ll figure this bitch out, don’t worry.” When Dean moved closer, clapping a hand on Alec’s shoulder Alec couldn’t help but smile in return. “We’ve never let Bobby down yet. I don’t plan on starting now.”  
  
**  
  
“So,” Sam said as he looked up from the research. A day of trolling through the internet and a trail of phone calls and Sam was finally ready to let them in on what he’d been finding out.  
  
“There were three names on the journal that Dean found at Roosevelt. Donald Lydecker, CJ Sandeman, and Werner Stutzman. Two of them were scientists but the first, Donald Lydecker, was a young lieutenant with the army. Apparently the military was interested in the project. I can’t find out if they were funding it or if they were just interested at that point, but it looks like Lydecker was a permanent feature at Roosevelt. He disappeared from public record in 1964.”  
  
“The same year as the Roosevelt Riots,” Dean added.  
  
“Yeah. Now Werner Stutzman went into private practice in ’64 but he died in a boating accident this past year. CJ Sandeman was the last name. According to Ellicot’s journal, Sandeman was in charge of the project. He lived through the Roosevelt Riots but died a year later.”  
  
“What happened?” Alec asked.  
  
“He committed suicide.”  
  
Dean shook his head. “After the things that were happening in the South Wing, I don’t blame him. He had to be aware of it.”  
  
“Yeah, he did. Ellicot’s journal talks about weekly meetings between them, just scientist to scientist to discuss what they were doing. Some of Ellicot’s edgier work seems to have come from Sandeman.”  
  
“So then the trail ends there?” Bobby asked.  
  
“No. Sandeman killed himself but he left behind a son. CJ Sandeman the Second. He worked along with his father and kept up his work. From what I could find out he started working for the military. And now we have a Sandeman the third, still on military payroll.”  
  
“You really think Roosevelt might have some answers?” Alec asked.  
  
“I think it’s a good place to start looking.”  
  
Alec felt something loosen up a little in his chest at that. Bobby had believed that Sam and Dean could help him figure this thing out but he’d been skeptical, even if he had wanted to meet the man with his face.  
  
“So what now?” Alec asked. He’d been on local hunts with Bobby when he was younger but it’d been five years since Alec had last been home.  
He had no idea what was next, or how Sam and Dean would work.  
  
“Tomorrow morning we hit the road. It’ll take us about twelve hours once we hit the pavement,” Dean said.  
  
“Dean,” Bobby’s voice sounded uncertain and Alec didn’t like it one bit, but he was looking at Dean expectantly.  
  
Dean just sighed. “Yeah, Bobby, I know. We’ll take good care of him. It’s not an actual hunt. The asylum is cleaned out. We’re just going to do some more leg work.”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Bobby said softly.  
  
“Pops?” Bobby looked at him and Alec gave him his most arrogant smile. “I do happen to be a genetically engineered military trained assassin. I can handle myself.”  
  
Bobby snorted. “Go get some sleep ya idjit,” he looked at Sam and Dean and shook his head. “All of you. I got to head down to New Mexico in the morning. I’ll kick you out of bed before I go.”  
  
Alec didn’t argue. He could go longer than a normal person without sleep, but he enjoyed his sleep. He figured all that sleep deprivation when he was younger had programmed him to take the rest when he could. He was already up the stairs and had his hand on the door knob to his room when he heard Sam and Dean behind him on the staircase.  
  
“He’s gonna wake us up at some ungodly hour,” Dean was complaining in a voice so soft that an ordinary wouldn’t be able to hear.  
  
“Yeah, so we better actually get some sleep tonight,” Sam countered.  
  
“Ah, Sammy, you don’t mean it,” Dean’s voice was sweeter as he spoke and Sam’s little puff of laughter was just on the edge of Alec’s hearing.  
  
“Just remember to put some clothes on before you fall asleep. Just about had a heart attack the last time he almost walked in on us.”  
  
They reached the top of the stairs then and Alec looked over his shoulder to see Sam’s answering smile. Dean caught him looking at them and gave him a half wave. “See you in the morning.”  
  
“Yeah,” Alec said with a half-smile. “Good night.”  
  
Dean closed the door behind them and then Alec was alone in the hallway, his father’s tinkering downstairs louder than it had seemed a few minutes ago. He walked into the room and closed his own door and lay back on the bed. There was no way to misunderstand Dean’s words. Hell, he was pretty sure if he just listened in he’d get a good show. The walls were pretty thin and his hearing gave him an advantage to anyone trying to sneak around the place at night. Somehow he doubted Sam and Dean were as controlled in their movements once the doors were closed.  
  
He stripped out of his clothes until he was just in his boxer briefs, trying to forget about it. He made his way to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. As he was crossing the hall though his hearing made out a single, simple word that spoke worlds of what was happening behind the other closed door.  
  
“Sammy,” Dean’s voice was soft, darker than Alec had ever heard it, and it rang of lust and love and complete adoration. When he got to his room he closed the door and picked up his Ipod. He cranked the volume up loud enough to shut out the outside world and closed his eyes as he fell back onto his bed.  
  
There were a lot of people in the world who would think what was happening in the room next to him was some sort of perversion, something sick and twisted. Alec knew what the world was like though. He knew about the things that went bump in the night and the nightmares that walked the earth. He knew about people who believed in doing the right thing at any costs, who took children and manipulated them until they were soldiers. Whatever was happening in that room, whatever light they could find to keep all that darkness at bay, Alec didn’t think of it as something ugly. Whatever else it was, love was always something beautiful.  
  
**  
  
“You alright back there?” Dean asked with a smirk on his face. Alec really, really wanted to belt him one but it wasn’t fair and it really wasn’t his fault.  
  
“Fine,” his voice was tight and clipped as he looked out the window, trying not to think of glass windows and little boxes for solitary confinement.  
  
“Alec?” Sam asked. Alec didn’t know if it was that Sam wore Jack’s face, or if it was just that he’d always been fascinated by Sam and Dean’s relationship when Bobby talked about them, but it was hard for him to keep quiet when Sam was asking.  
  
“I’m a little claustrophobic. They used to put us in these tanks,” Alec said as he stared at the grassy fields around them. “They’d ask you something over and over again and if you didn’t answer the way they thought you should they would lower the ceiling a little. They’d keep at it until you were curled up on the floor, barely room enough to breath, then they’ll leave you there to think about it without food or water.”  
  
“Jesus,” Dean hissed from behind the steering wheel.  
  
“How long did the leave you?” Sam asked.  
  
“Sometimes a few hours. Sometimes, a few days,” he sighed. “Once, they left me for a week. Our bodies repair pretty fast so they thought we could last six days without irreparable damage. I proved we could last seven.”  
  
“You need to stop?” Dean asked Alec.  
  
Alec just shook his head. A mile on they came across a small gas station and Dean pulled over. “Dean, I’m fine,” Alec said.  
  
“Yeah, well after that story I’m not,” Dean said as he looked in the back seat. “I need to stretch my legs.”  
  
It was oddly comforting, the empathy that Dean and Sam both had. Alec wasn’t good at that. He didn’t know if Manticore had been breeding empathy out of his model or if his sheltered life had formed that trait but he preferred to leave people to their own devices.  
  
They hit the bathrooms and while Dean filled up the gas tank, Sam invaded the snack shop and came out with a bag of goodies. Alec just leaned against the trunk of the car and stared up at the sky.  
  
“Look man,” Dean said as he watched Sam slide into the front passenger seat with his goodies. “Sam and I are used to driving around like this. We grew up with it. Hell, I’m not sure how Sam managed to study at Stanford without the countryside passing him outside the window,” he said with a smile. “But if you need something you tell me. Bobby’s the closest thing we got to family anymore and if you’re his, then you’re ours too, you got it?”  
  
Alec looked at him for a minute and he could only read sincerity in his eyes. He’d never expected something like that, no matter that he’d come to think of Dean and Sam as family long before he ever met them.  
  
“Yeah, okay. I got it.”  
  
“Good, then let’s get some miles in. It might be too late to do much by the time we get there but at least we can get settled in tonight and head over to the Asylum in the morning.”  
  
**  
  
The asylum was a sad, gray monument to humanity gone wrong. Graffiti covered the walls where ash didn’t. There was trash on the floor as they stepped into what would have been a lobby area and debris from outside had blown in at some point. On the right wall, something had built nests in the mattress that was thrown over the side of a toppled rolling cart.  
  
“Looks a lot better in the daylight,” Sam said, though his voice didn’t sound convinced.  
  
“No, it really doesn’t.” Dean’s voice was tight and Alec couldn’t help but notice the furtive stares Sam sent his way. He still didn’t know what had happened between the brothers here but it was enough to set them both on edge.  
  
“You said there was a secret room here before,” Alec said, hoping to break the tension. “Maybe we should check in that area. If they were able to build something there it means there was open space to dig into. Maybe what we’re looking for is in the same area.”  
  
Dean led the way, each of them with a weapon at the ready. Rock salt only, Dean had reminded when they got out of the car, his hand rubbing at his chest as if pulling at an old scab. Alec needed to figure out the dynamic there but he kept his head down. He’d ask later, when he could get one of them alone. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing they’d talk about together.  
  
The hallway was dark as Dean led them on. Sam had a flashlight he pulled out for the stairwell and then they were in the basement. They came to room 137 and Dean stopped outside it. “This is where we found the secret room last time.”  
  
“You think there’s another one in there?” Sam asked quietly.  
  
“No,” Alec answered as he looked around them. “They wouldn’t have put it in the same place. But it has to be in this general area.”  
  
“You seem pretty sure about that.”  
  
“Yeah, well you spent that much time being trained to lead a contingent of soldiers through the enemy lines you learn how to think like the enemy. And believe me, I had plenty of time to study my enemy.”  
  
“Look low,” Dean said as he crouched down. “Last time I found it because of the draft. Years of neglect and weather keep the seals from being what they were.”  
  
Alec moved to the other wall and started along the bottom the same was Dean was. Sam was standing at the end of the hall, just staring at the wall. “It’s here, Dean.”  
  
“What makes you think that?”  
  
“Just call it a hunch.”  
  
“Is this like you getting a vibe?” Sam looked at him and nodded. “Alright, let’s see if we can get this opened up then.”  
  
They tried to find something that would cause it to shift open but nothing worked. Finally, Alec stepped up to it. “Look, if it’s there maybe we just need to knock through the drywall, right?”  
  
“Yeah, that makes sense. If the military closed off the wall to protect its secret then they would have sealed the opening,” Sam said.  
  
“You got something to open this baby up with?” Dean asked.  
  
Alec took a deep breath and waited for Sam and Dean to back up before he pulled his fist back and knocked through the wall. It parted easily for him, not meant to withstand that sort of blow. He wouldn’t take the whole thing down with just his fist but at least he could see through the hole.  
  
“Well, at least we know something is back there. Its open space whatever it is.”  
  
**  
  
It took a few minutes to find something they could use to knock a larger hole in the wall but they managed. It wasn’t even as bad as they’d thought. Once they found the locking mechanism it was still shut in, but Alec had pushed both Sam and Dean back before standing in front of it and using his telekinesis. It shuttered for a minute, his will meeting the resistance of the sealant but Dean was right; neglect and weather had damaged the seal and he was able to get it to push open.  
  
“Damn,” Dean said softly as they waited for the dust to settle. Sam had just given him a tight lipped smile.  
  
It was an old lab, nothing that current technology had touched and Alec figured they were right. It had been sealed after the riots. There wasn’t a lot of anything left behind. It made sense that the military had taken what it thought was important.  
  
“Hey Dean, take a look at this.”  
  
In the back corner Sam was standing with a row of cardboard boxes. “There’s scorch marks on the back boxes,” he pointed out.  
  
Dean crouched down and nodded, pointed to an old burnt out device. “Looks like they set a timer to blow an explosive but it was a dud. Scorched a little of the box, but the fire never took hold. Guess we got lucky that they didn’t come back to check.”  
  
“Lucky, or the residence of Roosevelt kept them out?”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Either way it works for us, right Sammy?”  
  
“The work tables out front have wheels. I’ll roll a few closer so we can take a look,” Alec offered. He wanted to be out of there. The whole place felt like a tomb.  
  
The searched through the boxes for another three hours to hone in on the files they needed to take a closer look at. When Alec suggested they take the files back to their motel room for reading, Sam and Dean jumped all over the idea. He could see neither of them was comfortable there, but they didn’t want to be the one to mention it. Alec had no such problems.  
  
Of the twenty boxed left behind, they had four left to carry out. Alec took two, surprising Sam and Dean with his strength. Dean had just asked if it was a transgenic thing and when Alec nodded, that was that. He didn’t know if was Bobby’s opinion of him mattered so much to Sam and Dean or if they just had enough weirdness in their lives that they accepted his differences so quickly, but Alec was grateful either way.  
  
Back at the motel Alec took a box to his bed and Dean settled on the other. Sam took over the table, spreading files out and opening up his laptop. They stayed like that until Sam made a run for dinner. They talked about the files they had rummaged through as they ate their dinner but nothing important had come up yet. There were still a lot of files to go through though.  
  
When they were done eating, Dean grabbed his keys and headed out, telling Sam and Alec he was low on cash. Alec didn’t understand until Sam told him he was going out to hustle. Sam seemed to like the idea even less than Alec did, but Dean was already gone so it didn’t matter.  
Hours later, Alec sighed, closing the file he’d been looking through. “My eyes are gonna fall out if I don’t stop for a while.”  
  
Sam laughed as he closed the laptop and looked over at him. He got up and crawled onto the other bed, careful not to disturb the stacks of files that Dean had been working on. “I’ve got no idea how he has this organized but I guarantee if I moved a single file, he’d know it.”  
  
“So, are you gonna tell me what happened?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I mean here. You told me about the hunt, but something happened between you two and you’re both beating yourselves up over it.”  
  
Sam let out a deep breath. He looked like he was going to deny it for a moment but then he moved to the foot of the bed. “I’d been at Stanford for four year, you know, all alone and struggling to figure out how to live in the normal world. When Dad went missing, and then Jessica, my girlfriend, was killed by a demon, I took up with Dean again on the road. We’d only been hunting for maybe six months before this place came up and the hunt was right on the tail end of a really bad one for us. Hell I didn’t even want to be here. Dad had texted Dean with a set of coordinates to this place and Dean just followed Dad, like he always did. I spent four years living without my big brother looking over my shoulder, telling me a better way to do things, and living with him 24/7 was getting to me. Apparently my growing up was getting to him. We came here and Ellicot’s ghost, well we told you what was happening in the hunt and what he was doing here. Anyway, Ellicot got to me.”  
  
“Oh hell,” Alec exhaled. Every person the ghost had been in contact with had killed someone else and then themselves. Dean’s comments about rock salt only and the pull at his chest made sense.  
  
“Yeah,” Sam whispered softly. “I was still so angry about Jessica’s death and hunting again, and then Dad gave us this hunt when we were looking so hard to find him and it just set it all off again. I walked into the asylum angry and that was before the doctor got his hands on me. When Dean came looking for me, I pulled out the sawed-off and gave him a chest full of rock salt. It didn’t help the anger though, not really. He was hurt but it wasn’t any worse than what we got on a bad hunt so when he handed me a pistol, told me to take care of it for good, I did.”  
  
“Sam-“  
  
“Dean’s always been smarter than me when it came to stuff like that though. The gun wasn’t even loaded. He knocked me out and finished the hunt himself.”  
  
“And I made you come back here.”  
  
“No, you didn’t. We agreed to come back here. Dean would do anything for Bobby. So would I.”  
  
“Yeah, Pops has that effect on people.”  
  
Sam smiled then, something that wasn’t haunted. “I always thought he’d have made a good father.”  
  
“The best,” Alec agreed with a nod. “I had to be in hiding for a long time and when we started thinking about options, he didn’t even bat an eye about sending me to Europe. Don’t know how he paid for it, the school and the trips back and forth, but I never wondered what Pops felt for me, even if I didn’t know why I deserved it.”  
  
The door opened up with that last bit and Dean came swaggering in, “You don’t do anything to deserve that. People do what’s right for them and if Bobby loves you, he loves you. Don’t matter how fucked up you get.”  
  
“Dean-”  
  
“Might want to make sure the window is shut next time you’re doling out family history.”  
  
Sam was at the window a second later, closing it firmly as he looked back at Dean who had taken up position at the end of the bed. He smelled like beer and smoke but Alec could tell he wasn’t drunk. He couldn’t imagine how he felt though, after what Sam had just confessed.  
Sam turned to the door, “I’m gonna-”  
  
“Don’t you fucking walk now, man,” Dean growled at his brother. Sam’s hand stopped on the knob and he lowered his head to rest on the wood of the door. A second later he was across the room, closing the bathroom door behind him. “Fuck,” Dean moaned into his hands.  
  
Alec just sat there, watching, waiting. He had no idea what to say to all that. There was so much pain between the two men, so much love too though. “Dean-”  
  
“Don’t, Alec. You heard what he did. We lived through it, we will this time too.”  
  
“Yeah. I’m just sorry I brought you here.”  
  
“Don’t be. Sam wasn’t lying when he said it was our choice. We both knew what we were doing when we got in the car. I just needed to get some air and Sam,” Dean sighed. “Sam needs something else.”  
  
“Then give him what he needs.” Alec had no doubt about what Sam needed. After his confession, all Alec could see in Sam was his need to make things right with his brother.  
  
Dean shook his head. “You got no idea what you’re saying.”  
  
“I know he needs the same thing he needed before we left Pop’s.” Dean’s head snapped around to him and Alec just shrugged. “My hearing is better than a human’s.”  
  
Sam came out of the bathroom in time to hear that part and his mouth was wide open.  
  
Alec just smirked. “Don’t worry I have an Ipod and some discretion. I know how to use both.”  
  
Dean let out a huff at that and he shook his head. He moved all the files off the bed into clear piles though before he scooted up to the head of the bed. “Come on, Sammy,” he said, patting the space between his legs. Sam only stopped to look at Alec for a second before he crawled up onto the bed with Dean. Dean turned the television on and started flipping channels as Sam leaned back against his chest. “You up for some Dracula, Sammy?”  
  
“Are we talking Coppola?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Yeah.” Dean left it there after looking at Alec. Alec just nodded at the choice. It was a hunter’s guilty pleasure, watching the mess Hollywood made of their profession, but Bobby had told him he didn’t know a one that couldn’t quote by ‘em. Too much time in hotels with nothing but crappy movies.  
  
The movie was only on for a few minutes before Sam turned in his brother’s arms. Dean wrapped him up tighter as Sam shifted onto his side. When Sam tilted his chin up in an obvious invitation, Dean leaned into him, pressing their lips together lightly before Sam put his head back on Dean’s chest. “Nite, Sammy,” Dean whispered.  
  
A soft smile lingered on Sam’s lips as he fell asleep. Alec did his best to keep his eyes on the movie, but he couldn’t help but watch the way Dean’s arms held Sam close, the way his finger worked through Sam’s hair in a gestured that soothed the older Winchester as much as the younger.  
  
When the movie was finally over, he stared up at the ceiling watching the flickering of infomercials over the cracked paint, and couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have that sort of bond with someone, that sort of trust where they knew all of who you were and still tucked you in close at night.

 

**

 

Alec couldn’t sleep so when the sun came up he quietly got ready and went to the donut shop down the block. He grabbed some coffee, donuts, and bagels and headed back to their room. The brothers still weren’t up so Alec set the other stuff aside and settled in front of Sam’s laptop to check his email. He had a few messages from his friends at school, asking how his visit home had been so far. He ignored those, feeling both homesick for his friends and angry with himself for it, knowing he’d always kept himself a stranger to them. What little they knew of the real Alec was less than his name. None of them understood that deep down, he still answered to X5-494.  
  
  
What caught his attention were the headlines that had been forwarded to him. The guy was a hunter friend of Pop’s but when Alec asked if he could keep him to date on anything with a certain set of parameters he was on top of it. He’d given Alec a few leads over the years, always searching for Jack but coming up late when he got there. This was different though. He looked  
at the newspaper articles and cursed under his breath. Taking his phone outside so as not to disturb the brothers, he called his Pops.  
  
  
“They get you lost already?” Bobby answered the phone, voice gruff with the early hour.  
  
  
“Hey Pops, we’re not lost, just floundering in paperwork.”  
  
  
Bobby snorted. “It’s always the paper trail that will get ya.”  
  
  
“Yeah,”  Alec agreed, letting out a deep breath. “I’m calling about something else though. Sam and Dean are still asleep but I got some information from your friend, Ash. There have been four killings in Seattle. They’re calling him the UPC Killer. You see anything about it?”  
  
  
“Yeah, course. Doesn’t look like anything supernatural though.”  
  
  
“No. I think it’s transgenic.”  
  
  
“A transgenic serial killer?”  
  
  
“Yeah. They’re calling him the UPC killer because he’s tattooing his victims with a barcode on the back of their necks.”  
  
  
“I saw that. I was hoping that had nothing to do with you. I checked and all the barcodes are the same.”  
  
  
“That’s the problem. I know that barcode.”  
  
  
“Who is it?”  
  
  
“X5-493.  He must have escaped too. Pops, he was already bat shit crazy before he got out. I can’t imagine what time on the outside would have done to him.”  
  
  
“You gonna head up and take a look?”  
  
  
“Yeah, I have to. We can keep looking at these files on the go but I can’t try to track down Ben from here.”  
  
  
“You just be careful, Son.”  
  
  
“I will Pops. If you see anything else on the killer can you make note for me? The Impala isn’t exactly a great place for fact finding. “  
  
  
“Yeah. Those two doing okay?”  
  
  
“Jesus, I wish someone had warned me about the shit that went down at the asylum.”  
  
  
“If I coulda, I woulda.”  
  
  
“Nasty business, in the way only a Winchester can manage.”  
  
  
Bobby snorted over the phone again. “Just make sure you idjits don’t get yourselves killed.”  
  
  
“Can do Pops. I’m gonna head back in and wake them up. I’ll call later tonight and let you know where we land.”  
  
  
They hung up a moment later and Alec felt better for the conversation. If there was anything Bobby could find out about the killings he would and Alec didn’t have to worry about losing the information while they were driving. He heard rustling inside their room and stayed where he was, thinking about what chasing after another transgenic meant and giving Sam and Dean time to get started on their morning routine.  
  
  
When  
Alec went back inside, Dean was stepping out of the steaming bathroom. Sam was still in the shower and Dean closed the door quickly to keep the  steam from escaping. Alec took a seat at the table and grabbed a donut while he sipped at his coffee, trying to keep from intruding on Dean. Hell, Alec was vain enough to admit to an attraction to the other man, but it was more than his looks. Dean was someone who took care of other people, the type of man that did the right thing no matter what it cost him. His idea of the right thing might not always match society’s, but he had his own moral code and nothing could steer him from that. There was something vulnerable in the way he cared for Sam, as a brother and a lover, something that made him stronger when the unnatural creatures he hunted tried to force him down. Being cared for like that was seductive to someone like Alec, who’d been starved for anything close to affection by the time he found Bobby.  
  
  
“Coffee?” Dean asked hopefully as he pulled a tee shirt over his head. Alec just held out one of the cups, watching the way Dean’s pale flesh disappeared behind the falling fabric. He didn’t feel embarrassed when Dean smirked, having caught his gaze.  
  
  
“Donuts and bagels too if you want.”  
  
  
“Damn, how long have you been up?”  
  
  
“A  while. I don’t normally sleep through the night. I don’t know if I’m just that restless or if it has something to do with my genetic cocktail, but a few hours and I’m good.”  
  
  
Sam came out of the shower then and Alec made sure to keep his eyes away. Dean wasn’t the only one worth looking at in the room but from Pop’s stories, Alec had no doubts that Dean was possessive as hell. Alec opened up the laptop again and pulled up the information he wanted to show them. “So, I got some information this morning about a long term project I have going. I know I’m not the only transgenic to have escaped Manticore so I’ve been trying to track them down. Not a lot of hits on that search but Ash forwarded me a series of murders in the Seattle area.” He turned the computer to the others, watching as Dean handed Sam his coffee when he came close to the computer.  
  
  
“A barcode?” Sam asked.  
  
  
“The UPC killer, and that’s not just any barcode, it’s a transgenic’s barcode. X5-493 to be exact.”  
  
  
“And that means…” Dean left it open for him to continue.  
  
  
“I’m X5-494. 493 is the same model as me, only he should never have been let out of Manticore. He was already delusional when I escaped.”  
  
  
“So what is this?” Sam asked as he stood up from stooping to look at the screen.  
  
  
“I need to get to Seattle. The only person who would tattoo that mark on someone’s neck has to know about Ben. Hell, it could even be Ben. And the thought of a transgenic serial killer on the loose should scare everyone.”  
  
  
“What about the asylum? I thought you wanted to figure out why you got the psychic juice.”  
  
  
Alec  
looked at the files that were stacked around the room. “We can still take the files and look through them while we go. If we find we do need to come back it will still be there. I just need to see what this is in Seattle, and if someone else knows about Manticore maybe we can get the information we’re looking for.”  
  
  
Sam nodded at that, but looked to his brother for an answer. Dean looked at Alec before looking back at the computer screen. “Yeah. Bad enough to know someone else out there has my face, but to think of a psychotic with it? I really don’t need that kind of heat from the feds.”  
  
  
Sam snorted at that but his fingers were lying on the curve of Dean’s neck, tightening slightly. Dean took a deep breath before looking up at Sam. “Let’s pack up then. It’s a long drive to Seattle.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
Alec was antsy as hell but he couldn’t stop the nervous energy that was running through him. 

They’d been driving for two days and they were finally on the outskirts of Seattle. Dean had run out to grab food while they waited for Sam to come back from the local newspaper, trying to get more information about the UPC Killer.

 

It didn’t hit him until he was alone that he’d just taken for granted that Sam and Dean would follow him to Seattle. He  
knew he had a bit of hero worship going with the brothers, that he’d grown up listening to Bobby tell him stories about them, and in ways he found himself reacting as if they knew him just as well.

 

They didn’t though. To Sam and Dean, he was just a stranger that Bobby introduced them to a few days ago. The  
fact that they were willing to help him track down Manticore and follow  him on this hunt for a serial killer made him realize how much they trusted Bobby. And just what sort of people they were; that they’d go off with a stranger because they were the only ones that could stop this killer.

 

He didn’t have words for the gratitude he felt and when Dean showed up with food, all he could do was clear off the table  
and eat. When Sam came back he still didn’t have anything to say. In the end though, they were Winchesters and when Alec smiled, he thought just maybe they understand what he meant anyway.

 

**

 

Seattle wasn’t an easy town for Alec. When he’d first escaped he’d made his way there and the memories weren’t good.  
He’d been too young, lost without Jack who he’d sworn to protect, and too new to the outside world to know how to survive well. It wasn’t until he found Bobby that he learned how to survive. Bobby gave him something he never knew before Manticore and a reason to live outside of it.

 

The cooler weather suited him though and once they were settled in Seattle it was only a matter of time before they would  
get a chance at the UPC killer. Sam and Dean were interviewing one of the investigators and they’d told Alec to stay put and keep working on the files from the asylum. He didn’t want to, but Sam and Dean were right. He wasn’t a hunter and if Ben was really out there killing they didn’t need Alec to be mistaken for him.

 

His phone rang and Alec picked up quickly without looking to see who it was. “Hello?”

 

“Alec?”

 

“Hey Pops, any news?”

 

“Some. You can get the details from Sam’s email. I sent the information on to him but I figured you’d want to know. This isn’t the first time he’s killed.”

 

“We’ve got a number of kills already, Pops. We know this isn’t the first.”

 

“I’m not talking about Seattle. There were other cities. No one put it all together and there seems to have been a cover up to keep it quiet. There were two murders in Chicago, four in Miami, and three in New York. All with the same MO as your X5 up there.”        

 

“Ben. He has a name, Pops.” He shouldn’t have corrected him. Bobby would know this was bothering him the second he did it but he couldn’t stop himself. It’d taken a long time before he’d been able to stop telling himself that his name was Alec and not X5-494 and down deep it was still the name he had been born too.  Ben deserved to have a name even if he was killing. He didn’t know why the other transgenic had gone crazy, but Manticore was at the heart of it all and he deserved pity for that if nothing else.

 

“Yeah, alright. Ben has been busy, Alec. You take care of yourself and make sure you don’t get caught up in his scheme. Or caught in his place. I doubt the cops would care that the barcode is off by one digit, if you catch my drift.”

 

“Yeah, I got it.” The noise on the other side of the door made him sit up, but he could hear it was just Sam and Dean. “Got to go Pops. I’ll call you when we get something real.”

 

“Alec?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Take care of yourself. You know I love you, son.”

 

Alec closed his eyes and took a deep breath. They weren’t overly emotional, either of them, but Bobby had always been able to tell when Alec needed to hear it. “Yeah, me too old man. Talk to you soon.”

 

He hung up just in time to watch Sam and Dean come through the door.   “You got anything?” he asked.

 

Sam shook his head. “Nothing we didn’t already know. This definitely fits the UPC killer but the police don’t know anything  
more than they did with the last victims. The  bodies were found in different area, but with the same MO as the others; arm broken post mortem and positioned in the same pattern, teeth pulled.”

 

“I just got off the call with Pops and he said this isn’t the first city Ben has visited. There have been nine murders in three other cities with the same MO. Someone is shutting down the investigations.”

 

“Who has the power to shut down investigations in that many different cities?” Dean asked.

 

“Manticore.”

 

“You think they’re out there, covering up for a serial killer?”

 

“I think it’s in their best interests not to let it get too public.” Alec admitted with a tired sigh.

 

“Then how did they slip up in Seattle?”

 

Alec shook his head.   “I was able to dig a little on that while you were gone. Seems like there are a number of underground  
groups that have eyes and ears on what Manticore is doing. One of them leaked information to the news before Manticore could cover it up and they’ve continue to do so with each new murder. If I could figure out who did it we’d at least have an ally but we’ve got nothing.”

 

“So what now?” Sam asked as he took a seat on the bed. “This is your show man.”

 

Alec let out a deep breath. “I think I need to look over that forest. I know the cops have been trying to find something but they don’t know what a transgenic can do. They might be ruling things out that they shouldn’t be. They just don’t know what to look for.”

 

“Alright,” Dean said as he yanked his tie off and threw it onto the back of the chair. “Tomorrow morning it is.”

 

**

 

They wasted half the day going through trails and running under the canopy of trees before Alec decided to stop thinking like a detective and more like a solider. He stopped looking where the bodies were found and went back to the map and found the best place for hiding out. What he found was a series of old storehouses buried deep in the wooded area. They were close to a few of the park service roads as well as two of the major rivers that ran through the area. Even during full tourist season it wasn’t an area that would be visited much but an X5 could make the trip easily, burdened with a body or no.

 

Once they moved to that area it wasn’t hard for Alec to find the trail. It was subtle and well hidden but Ben apparently wasn’t worried about anyone tracking him that far. Dean and Sam moved seamlessly with Alec as they closed in on the seemingly forgotten storehouse. He gave the brothers credit. They moved as quiet as any Manticore solider could. Alec  
knew they weren’t normally so careful, but apparently a lifetime of hunting the supernatural gave them an effortless silence as they moved out of the trees and towards the building.

 

Sam opened the door with some quick work with his lock picks and Dean threw it open, moving quickly through the entrance. No movements came from inside the building as they spread out but Alec stopped almost as soon as one of the brothers threw  
the light switch up. There were words and symbols spray painted on the walls and it wouldn’t have meant anything if  
anyone else had walked in the room. Alec knew what it was though; duty, mission, discipline. Manticore’s brainwashing spray painted over and over again.

 

“See if you can find anything in here. I’ll try to see if there’s any trace of him out back,” Alec said as he moved through the building. There  wouldn’t be but he didn’t want to be in the building any longer than he had to be.  Too many memories swam in his head, past tortures that Alechad thought were far behind him.  

 

He took a deep breath as he got outside, trusting to Dean and Sam to look over the inside thoroughly. It was rough shod work, he knew, but there was only so much he could take. He didn’t know why the words etched into his memory when he was a child  
were having such an effect on him now but he couldn’t deny the impact they had. Images of the dorms they’d lived in, the indoctrination they’d gone through, his unit, flashed through his head at a sickening rate.

 

“It’s hard to forget, isn’t it?”

 

Alec looked up at the voice he never thought he’d hear, coming from behind the trees. It was his voice, but colder and harder. The man moved out from behind the trees and Alec got a good look at the man who could have been him. There was no identifying mark, no scar to tell the two apart, only Ben’s face was marked with an angry scowl and his body radiated a military clean that made Alec’s teeth ache.

 

“Oh yeah, but well worth the effort,” Alec said.

 

“Is it?” Ben didn’t wait for him to answer but ran away from the storehouse. He wasn’t moving fast enough that Alec had to  
go full speed to keep up with him, just enough to cause a chase. He thought about calling out to Sam and Dean but he didn’t want to give away their location and he knew they’d come along soon enough on their own to find him. They didn’t run far when Ben finally stopped in a small clearing and Alec was face to face with him again.

 

“It’s not the same, is it Alec?” Ben asked as they circled one another. “No matter what we do on the outside, it’s never the same. I know you understand. You and I, we’re not like the others. We were never meant to be like them.”

 

“Yeah, I get it. You’ve lost all the frosting on your flakes and you’re killing innocent people to prove it.”

 

“Not innocent,” Ben snarled. “Hypocrites. Liars. They said they believed, but it was never enough.”

 

“Enough to do what?”

 

“If they believed in the Blue Lady she would have saved them from me.”

 

  
  
  
  
  
“Here is where I don’t get you,” Alec said with a shake of his head. “You’re smart, fast, can do what no ordinary can. You’ve got great looks, and yet you muck it all up with this bullshit about the Blue Lady.”

 

“It is not bullshit!” Ben screamed.

 

“Then why isn’t she saving them, Ben?” Alec asked.   “Why didn’t she save any of you?   You believed! Lord knows we all turned a deaf ear to your unit sneaking up onto the roof to pay your tribute to her, but it didn’t do you any good, did it?”

 

Ben lashed out then, fist moving towards Alec’s face with superhuman speed. He backed away with the practiced ease of a soldier and Ben’s face distorted into fury. He kicked low and Alec blocked before mirroring Ben’s move. The other X5  
blocked but he stumbled away from the attack, slightly off balance.

 

“You can’t win this, Ben, and it isn’t because you don’t believe enough in the Blue Lady. It’s because I’m a soldier and I know my place. There is no Blue Lady, only the orders they gave you. You can either go home to them or you can realize they never had the right to order you around. We have a right to be free, just like the normal do.”

 

“Oh, we can go home alright. Even without the Blue Lady, we can go home again.”

 

Alec didn’t like that turn in the conversation but Ben sneered and launched himself at Alec. The fight was hard and fast, fists and feet flying at speeds a regular human wouldn’t be able to detect, let alone defend against. They were evenly matched in body size and weight and while Alec was the better fighter, Ben was unpredictable with his beliefs.

 

They were locked close together and Alec couldn’t get his hands away from Ben’s arms to push him further back. If he did, he’d be opening himself up to a worse attack so instead he pushed out with his telekinesis. It sent them both backwards and Alec landed hard enough against a tree to knock the air from his lungs. When he looked up, Ben was staring at him with wild eyed fear. A second later, Ben started running. Alec took a step but before he could pursue his look-alike someone barreled into Ben from the side. He wanted to warn the person away but he didn’t have the breath for it. When Ben fought to get up though, the guy held him down, delivering a punch that left the transgenic unconscious.

 

Alec took a deep breath, every instinct telling him it was time to run but at the same time he wouldn’t leave Ben  
unconscious to whatever had just taken him down. The figure stood up and turned towards Alec but his face was covered by the hood of his jacket. He was tall and the power Alec had seen directed into his brief fight with Ben showed he was incredibly  
strong. He wasn’t someone Alec wanted to get within arm’s reach of.

 

“Alec?” The guy took another step forward and Alec couldn’t move.  
  
  
He knew that voice. The guy pushed the hood back off his head and revealed the face that Alec had been searching for ever since they’d escaped.

 

“Jack?”

 

He looked like Sam, the same long hair, big eyes, and soft smile, but there were other differences. Jack held his body different, like a predator instead of curling in on himself to hide his frame the way Sam tended to. A  scar traced the edge of his right cheekbone and Alec had the desire to reach out and sooth the pain, though it was long since healed.

 

He couldn’t seem to make his limbs work but Jack didn’t have that problem. He was moving through the clearing quickly, stopping only when he was right in front of Alec.

 

“I … it’s you, right?”

 

Alec couldn’t help but laugh at the question. It broke his paralysis and he reached a hand out, running his fingers over the scar.  
Jack’s smile started small, tentative, but then gave way to a full blown dimpled smile.

 

“Yeah Jack, it’s me. What are you doing here?”

 

“I’ve been looking for other transgenics. I caught wind of the UPC killer and I knew it had to be one of us so I came to check it out. I never thought …” he broke off, eyes searching Alec’s face.

 

“I did the same thing. Well,” Alec looked down and then back up at Jack through his eyelashes. “I was looking for you. Ever since we got separated I’ve been looking for you. When you went to ground I couldn’t get a trace on you at all so I had some people keeping an eye out for anything that could be one of us.”

 

“You have people?” Jack teased.

 

“Alec!” They both turned at the sound of Dean’s voice, but Jack moved to put himself between Alec and the intruder.

 

Dean stared at the two of them and Alec put his hand on Jack’s shoulder to get him to back down. “Jesus Christ,” Dean swore as he looked over his shoulder to where Sam was coming up behind him. “That is fucking creepy.”

 

“Dean, Sam,” Alec stepped away from Jack, just a few steps to catch everyone’s attention. “This is Jack, the transgenic I escaped with. Jack, these are the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean. They’re close friends of mine.”

 

Jack eyed the brothers and they stared right back until Dean finally broke the silence. “Ben?” he asked as he looked over at Alec.

 

“Jack knocked him unconscious. He should be out for a while. We should probably get him restrained while we figure out what to do with him,” he said, nodding to Jake. Jake nodded back, moving over to Ben’s side. While Alec had always been fast,  
even for an X5, Jack had been extraordinarily strong. They’d always pushed one another in training and Alec used to think there was nothing they couldn’t do once they got out together. They’d been separated though and he’d spent years looking for the other man to no avail. Watching him heft Ben up on his shoulder like he was nothing made Alec smile.

 

“Did you two find anything in the storehouse?” Alec asked as he turned his attention back to Sam and Dean.

 

“Yeah. People.”

 

“What?”

 

Sam shook his head. “There’s two people locked in a room. They can’t get out and considering what Ben was up to, we figured we better have transgenic backup before we opened the door.”

 

None of them said anything on the way back. Sam led the way and Dean took the rear position, no doubt so that he could keep a gun on Jack without seeming suspicious about it. It made Alec smile to be protected like that, but it was Jack and if there was anyone in the world less likely to hurt Alec than his Pops, it was Jack. Dean and Sam didn’t know that though. Hell, Alec didn’t really but there were some things that never changed. Some bonds never broke and that one moment with Jack told him all he needed to know about him.

 

“So,” Sam looked around the room, obviously trying to avoid looking at the man with his face. “What do we do with Ben?”

 

“Let’s see who we’ve got locked up. Maybe we can let them out and throw Ben in there for now.” Alec suggested.

 

“I have an idea of who it is,” Jack said as he set Ben gently on the floor. His grace belied his size and Alec really wanted this whole business done so he could just be with Jack again. Jack looked up at him and gave him a half smile. “I found a  
few transgenics over the years. Kept in touch. When we found out about the UPC killer we met up to find him. Max and  
Zack went missing two days ago though and I haven’t been able to find them. I tracked them here.”

 

“Tell me they aren’t batshit crazy too?”

 

Jack laughed. “No. Just determined to do right by their baby brother.”

 

A heavy pounding sound drew their attention and Jack smiled. “That would be Max. She was never the patient type.”

 

Alec smiled as Jack started towards the back of the building but when he looked back he saw the nervous glance between Sam  
and Dean. He wanted to know what that was about but Jack was already looking into a small window in the room where the others must have been kept. He grabbed the lock and threw it open without looking back at Alec or the others.

 

Alec trusted Jack not to hurt him, but he didn’t have the same belief about the others. He knew who they were, knew their names, but that was all he knew. He found himself walking up in front of Sam and Dean to make sure he was between them and whatever came out of that room.

 

“About damn time,” Max complained as she stepped out into the open. Alec could see the child she’d once been, reflected in the woman; dark complexion and hair, stormy eyes and a perpetual pout on her lips. Sharp tongued and impatient.

 

“Well when you let your brother throw you in a box, you gotta take the time out,” Jack said with a grin.

 

The guy that stepped out behind Max was tall and broad. There was a commanding presence about him but Alec recognized the boy in him as well, quick to judge, ready to defend his unit but to leave others to die. Zack would do anything for his people, but only for his.

 

“Where is Ben?” Zack asked immediately.

 

“Out of commission, for the moment,” Alec answered.

 

Zack and Max turned to look at him then, to look at the brothers behind him. He felt himself growing colder, the soldier pulling to the surface as if he expected a fight then and there. He hated it but he knew what he was up against if they decided to act against them.

 

Max looked up at Jack and Jack nodded. “He and Alec were fighting when I got here. Managed to stop him as he tried to  
escape. He won’t have anything but a bruised cheek and ego when he wakes up, but we need to get him in there before  
he does,” he said, indicating the room they’d just left.

 

Jack didn’t wait for Max’s agreement, but left them to go back to retrieve Ben. Max and Zack came over to the three of them and Alec could feel Zack’s hostility. “Who are you?” He demanded.

 

“Alec. This is Sam and Dean.”

 

“No, I mean who are you?” Zack tried again.

 

Alec stared at him for a minute before he realized what the other man wanted. And there was no way in hell Alec was giving his designation. “I’m not a fucking number,” he growled to the other man. “My name is Alec.”

 

Zack started to take a step forward, but Max stopped him. “Zack, back off.” The transgenic glared at her for a second  
too, but when she didn’t back down he stepped away, taking in their surroundings.

 

“Sorry, we’ve … had problems with others being sent out to find us. Zack’s not all that trusting.”

 

“He never was.”

 

“Yeah, well, not like they taught us anything better.”

 

Alec let out a snort at that. Trust was something he’d learned under his Pops. By the time he’d left Manticore the only thing he trusted was Jack. It’d  taken years to learn to believe Bobby when he said something and he still fought sometimes, the need to keep himself covered in case Bobby turned on him. That was the lesson Manticore had taught him. Bobby’s more patient lesson of trust and caring was hard to come into and harder to stick, but it had worked eventually.

 

“So what’s their deal?” Max asked, tipping her head at Sam and Dean.

 

“I guess us everyday humans are below their notice,” Dean commented dryly.

 

Alec couldn’t help but turn around and share a rolled eye with Sam. When he looked back at Max, he consciously moved to stand beside the brothers, not in front of them. He saw the way Max’s eyes widened slightly and he knew she got his point. “Sam and Dean appear to be the genetic donors for the X5-49 and the X5-41 series.   Max,” he said, looking at the brothers, “is  
one of Ben’s unit.” Alec looked back at Max then. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t stop him before he killed all these people?”

 

“We separated when we escaped. We didn’t know what Ben was doing until it made the headlines here. Jack was always  
trying to find others and he called us up. Said we needed to get here to stop what was happening.”

 

“You knew he was crazy. Hell, Ben was crazy when I escaped. Why the hell would you leave him to fend for himself like that?”

 

Max had the grace to look down but Zack got up in his face, apparently done with his perusal of the building. “And what about you, Alec?” he demanded. “You left your buddy high and dry, didn’t you?”

 

Alec pushed him back, forcing distance between them. “No I didn’t. Jack and I were supposed to stay together. We got separated in the flight and I never stopped looking for him. We didn’t use each other to get out and then try to forget.”

 

“That’s not the way I heard it,” Zach countered as he tried to close the distance again.

 

“Then you weren’t listening,” Jack said as he brought the unconscious Ben forward. Max followed him into the other room and as he laid Ben out, she ran her fingers through Ben’s hair in a comforting fashion.

 

“It doesn’t matter what happened in the past,” Jack said as he stepped out of the room. “The question is what do we do with him now?”

 

“What do you mean?” Zack demanded.

 

“He means, there’s a serial killer in the room with us and he’s not done killing.” Dean answered.

 

“What do you think you’re going to do about it?”

 

“That’s enough!” Max yelled. Her eyes were angry but when she turned to look at Jack, she softened. They stared at one another for a minute before Jack sighed.

 

“We can’t let the police have him. He’ll be right back in the hands of Manticore if we do that. And we can’t just kill him. He might be crazy, but it’s not his fault he was made like this.”

 

“What are you suggesting, Jack?”

 

“Max wants to take care of him. Help him adapt to the outside. She thinks she can make him see reason.”

 

“He killed a lot of innocent people,” Sam said softly.

 

Max looked at the brothers then, actually took note of them before she spoke, just as quietly. “Is it really justice to hand him back to people that will cut him open to see what went wrong? Or to put him down like a dog?”

 

Alec didn’t chime in because he already knew he was willing to let Max have her chance. What Ben did was unforgivable, but who had the right to judge him? Didn’t they all deserve a chance? Who knew what he’d have turned into if Pops hadn’t found him?

 

He watched the brothers exchange a look and then Dean nodded to Max. “But if you can’t tame him,we’ll come looking again.”

 

Max grit her teeth but she answered. “If I can’t keep him from killing, you don’t have to. I’ll end it myself.”

 

“We’re agreed then?” Jack asked. When no one fought him on that statement he nodded. “Great. Because we have another  
problem. Anyone else hear him talking about another way home?”

 

Alec nodded but Max and Zack both looked pale at the mention of it. “He said,” Max stopped and shook her head before starting again. “He said he knew how to get back into Manticore. That the Blue Lady only protected the strong and we’d grown weak on the outside. He was trying to collect us. The reason he was putting his barcode on the back of their necks was to draw as many transgenics as he could. He thought if he could get enough of us, Manticore would let him back in.”

 

“He knew how to get there?” Alec stepped forward.

 

“Yeah. He told us a few times. He didn’t think we believed him.” Max said.

 

There was something off about her, something softer than he remembered, but he saw the way she looked at Ben and the way Zack watched her and wondered if there wasn’t maybe a little something broken in all of them. Ben was just the only one who had shown it so clearly to the world.

 

“What was he planning to do?”

 

“He has a truck out back. He said he stole it a while ago from a Manticore group. He was going to put us all in the back and  
just drive us up to the gate.”

 

“What are you thinking, Alec?” Sam asked.

 

He looked at the Winchester brothers and donned the smirk he knew bothered Sam the most. “What better place to get the answers to the questions from Roosevelt than to go to Manticore itself?”

 

The other transgenics were looking at him like he was crazy and so was Sam but Dean just shook his head. “You really think you can waltz in there and get what you need without getting us killed?”

 

“Yeah, I do. Manticore is made to keep people in, not out.”

 

“Looks like it will be recon tonight then. Screw this. I’m taking a nap. Wake me up when it’s time to do something.”

 

Just like that, he knew he had Sam and Dean at his side. Jack was making a point of not looking at Sam but he had no trouble meeting Alec’s eye. “What sort of questions do you have?”

 

Alec smiled. “Well, this whole damn thing started like this…”

 

**

 

Recon would have to wait until the next day, they decided. Max and Zack decided to stay with Ben in the storehouse but when Alec went to follow Sam and Dean out, Jack was at his side.

 They made it to the motel room before Jack’s unnatural stillness began to bother Alec. He didn’t say anything but as soon as the door was closed behind them, Jack had Sam pushed up against the door, studying his face.

 

 “What the hell?” Sam demanded but he didn’t sound frightened. He sounded pissed. So did the sound of the gun cocking behind Jack.

 

 “You wanna back off my brother real slow,” Dean said, his voice soft and dangerous.      

 

 “Dean,” Alec wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t about to let Dean hurt Jack but he knew how sensitive Dean was to anything he perceived as a threat to Sam.

 

 Jack’s hand moved around to the back of Sam’s neck and stopped. Alec knew what he was doing,  
looking for the one thing that made Sam and Dean so different from them.

 

 Jack’s voice was quiet when he finally spoke. “I’ve never seen another.”

 

 They weren’t supposed to see the other models, but Alec had never been all that good at doing what he was told. It was only by chance that he’d met Ben and then only his curiosity that had kept him going back.

 

 “Me and you both,” Sam said, an edge of humor creeping into his voice. Jack took a step back then  
and Dean lowered his gun.  

 

 “I’m sorry, I just … “

 

 Sam shrugged it off but looked pointedly towards his brother. “Can I move away from the door  
now?”

 

 “Shit, sorry,” Jack said as he scrambled back away from Sam, letting him through.

 

 Sam moved past Dean but a moment passed between them where Alec could see Sam reassuring his brother.   Dean put the gun away then and Sam took a seat at the table in the motel room. It wasn’t a large room and none of them were small. It felt claustrophobic to Alec and he could feel the same sort of anxiety building in Jack.

 

 Alec moved towards the door and looked back at the others. “I’m just gonna get another room. This one isn’t going to fit the four of us.”

 

 Dean just gave a nod but Sam’s answering smile reassured him that they knew it was more than just the physical space he needed tonight. Jack didn’t come with him, didn’t even look at him when he moved to the door but Alec pushed away the thought that Jack didn’t want to come with him. He hadn’t  
offered and Jack had no way of knowing what was in Alec’s head after all these years. No more than Alec had, and that right there was the biggest part of why Alec wanted a room. He needed to be with Jack and find out what had happened to him, who he’d become.

 

 Regardless of it all though, Alec knew himself and he knew he wanted Jack with him. Whatever he’d  
gone through, they could work it out. Much like Max’s need to keep Ben close and help him out, Alec needed Jack.

 

  
  
It only took a few minutes to get the room next to Sam and Dean’s and Alec only stopped in the other room long enough to grab his gear and ask Jack if he was coming. Jack followed, but Dean stopped Alec before he could get out the door, telling him they’d let them know when they were heading out for food later.

 

 Alec had a pretty good idea what Dean had in mind to do with the unexpected time alone with his brother and Alec didn’t mind letting out a cheeky “have fun,” before the door was closed between them.

 

 He got the room open and it wasn’t until the door was closed that he realized he didn’t know if Jack needed to get his own things. “I didn’t even ask,” Alec said softly as he dropped his things onto the first bed. “I just assumed you’d stay here with me. Do you have somewhere else to be?” He didn’t turn around to hear the answer, too afraid that Jack would be leaving.

 

 Jack came up behind him, hands resting lightly on his arms. “I spent all this time looking for  
you, Alec. You really think I’m letting you out of my sight now? Just about split me in two, watching you go up to the office alone.”

 

 “You could have come.”

 

 “I wasn’t sure I was invited.”

 

 Alec let out a small laugh.   “There’s nowhere in my life you aren’t invited to.”

 

 Jack’s voice was much closer when he spoke. “Nowhere?” Lips brushed Alec’s ear and he found himself leaning back into the larger body behind him. Once upon a time, he’d been the bigger one. When he turned his head and looked up, he realized it was only the first of many things about them that were about to change.

 

 “Nowhere,” Alec confirmed as Jack’s mouth descended upon his.

 

 He lost track of everything else, fuck his training and observations, because Jack was with him and there was nothing in the world but the feel of his skin and the warm press of his body. Jack’s mouth was as sinful as it looked and there was nothing Alec wanted more than to hear his moans and the way he gasped Alec’s name.

 

 The swore off talking as words tried to spill out, apologies swallowed by the other’s lips. When Jack  
put Alec on his back, he didn’t fight for control or try to outmaneuver the other man. He wanted Jack in any way he could have him. The only fight he put up was when Jack tried to be took easy with him, tried to open him up too slow and Alec rolled them both over, pinning Jack to the bed before sinking down onto his cock for the first time. Pain pulsed through him but even as it settled his body was repairing and stretching around the new invasion. He braced his hands on either side of his lover’s head and kissed him playfully, teasing and tormenting now that he had the upper hand and Jack laughed even as his large hands gripped Alec’s hips and started the rhythm he wanted to follow. Alec encouraged him with hard kisses until they were both just sharing breath, unable to look away from the other as  
pleasure pulsed back and forth between them. Jack barely wrapped his fingers around Alec’s cock and he was spilling over his lover’s hand and that was all Jack needed to lose himself as he thrust up hard into Alec two more times before stilling.

 

 They slept then, without fear and regret for the first time in years. It wasn’t the conversation they needed to have, but that would come next. After dinner, maybe. In the morning if not. For now, it was enough for Alec to just be with Jack.

 

  
  
   
**

 

  
  
It had been years since Alec had seen a Manticore facility but it was still the same. Everything ran with the same military precision he remembered and when they watched, they knew their plan could work. And it did. Right up until it didn’t.

 

 “You’re doing what?” Dean demanded over his cell phone.

 

 Alec looked at the other man, still finding it rather startling to look at the man in a military uniform. None of them were happy about it, but Dean seemed the least comfortable in the get up. Right up until he had to play the part. None of that was helping them at the moment though.

 

  
  
Alec had finally pinned down the files he needed to get from Manticore about himself specifically, his model, and the Winchester brothers. That was just as it was supposed to be. Sam and Jack had gone up  
with Max and Zack to ensure their escape and to see if there was any other danger they needed to route out. It was simple. Get the data and move on.

 

 Dean’s conversation sounded an awful lot like complications.

 

 “Jesus, yeah Sammy, you gotta. I know. Just. Make sure there’s plenty to distract them from our exit, alright?”

 

 The call ended then and Alec looked up at Dean. Dean didn’t make him ask. “Apparently Ben was causing enough trouble that Manticore decided it was time to cleanse the facility.”

 

 “Oh hell.”

 

 “Yeah. They were gonna burn the place down with the freaks still inside. That’s why the facility has so few staff right now. They were already evacuated away from the danger. Sam and Jack got up there and realized what was happening and started to shut the whole thing down. Zack and Max are getting everyone out.”

 

 “That’s gonna be a hell of a mess,” Alec said as he watched the last file copy onto the flash drive.  “And we are done here. Where to now?”

 

 “Rendezvous is the same location.”

 

 They ran through the halls and as they got to the lower levels it was chaos. Some of the fires had started before Sam and Jack had been able to stop it and the doors were still locked. Dean was shooting off locks left and right and Alec did the only thing he could, use his telekinesis to push hard enough to open them up. It was becoming too much and when Dean realized it he tapped Alec on the head.

 

 “Smarter not harder. Can you knock the pins in the hinge out?”

 

 Alec rolled his eyes but it was a lot easier that way. Alec started pulling the hinge apart and the door  
pushed off easily.

 

 They were running in the same direction as the others when they heard the gunfire start up. There was return fire but Alec didn’t think much of the chances of the men left on the walls. They would have been low level soldiers to have been left last in an evacuation anyway and the creatures being set free were more often than not well trained soldiers.

 

 By the time they made it to the rendezvous, the others were waiting impatiently. Dean was glaring  
because Sam had obviously been roughed up but Sam wouldn’t let him check it out as they jumped in the back of the truck. Jack had a splattering of blood over his uniform and a bruise that was  
already healing under his eye. He just smiled at Alec until they were out the gates.

 

 “We’re gonna end up hunting half of them,” Dean said softly.

 

 Alec closed his eyes against the thought but he knew it was true. Too many of the creatures Manticore had made wouldn’t be able to survive on their own. They’d surface eventually, coming too close  
to human habitation for survival and hunters would get news of it.

 

 “Maybe just send them my way,” Max suggested. “Gonna stay in Seattle a while. No one can ID Ben and I know my way around pretty well. There are some areas I know where I can hide all sorts of things.”   She looked at Jack then. “You know how to contact me if you come across anything.”

 

 “Yeah, I do.”

 

 The truck lurched to a stop then and Alec and Zack got out. “We’re gonna hoof it the other way now,” Zack said as he came to the back. “Take care of yourself Jack. Don’t get caught and don’t get in any trouble.”

 

 Jack laughed. “Only trouble I ever get into, I call you first.”

 

 “You’re a bad habit, man,” Zack said with a shake of his head, the first sign Alec had seen that the man had feelings about anyone outside his own unit. But then, over time, it looked like Jack had made himself a part of that unit.

 

 They didn’t take time for anything else. They sprinted off into the trees and left Dean to crawl into the front to start them on the drive back to their next escape vehicle.

 

  
  
“Did you find out what you needed to know?” Jack asked, Sam turning around in the front seat to hear his answer.

 

  
  
“Yes and no. It looks like Sandeman knew about hunters and demons all along. When he started  working out the genetics of the X5’s he decided to try something a little different. He knew that a certain demon was using demon blood to create psychics so he caught his own demon, drained enough blood for his use, and sent him back to hell. And I was one of the lucky ones he decided to try it out on.”

 

 “And the Winchesters?”

 

 “There were a lot of encrypted files. I still don’t know why he chose them but it’s only a matter of time before we can crack these files open and find out what else Manticore has been hiding. From all  
of us.”

 

 Sam nodded and Dean looked back in the rear view mirror. “In the meantime, can we just  
stick to some old fashioned hauntings? I mean, when was the last time we got to ice something like a zombie?”

 

 They laughed and Jack’s eyes went wide. Though Alec had explained hunting to the others already, they hadn’t gotten into too much detail about it. “You’re not joking are you?”

 

 Sam threw his head back and laughed while Dean found a radio station that played classic rock and turned the volume up.

 

 Alec just smiled. “Oh the things you have yet to learn.”

  


  
**

 

  
The drive to Bobby’s should have taken twenty one hours but they made it in eighteen. Bobby wasn’t  
there, just a note on the fridge saying he’d been called away to help a friend and would be back before the evening, to make themselves at home, and make Alec play the part of good host. The last was another of his Pop’s reminders that it was his home and Alec just smiled at it before pulling Jack up the stairs to his room. Sam and Dean knew their own way around.

 

  
In the morning, Sam and Dean took off on their own again. They needed time to process everything they’d learned just the same as Alec and Jack did. Alec didn’t blame them and he had plenty to deal with at home by that point. Watching Sam and Dean pull out of the driveway though was a much different experience than it had been to wait for them to show up. They hadn’t known one another then and now Alec knew Sam and Dean had his back. He felt Jack’s chest pressed against his back as they watched them leave from the front porch.

 

  
“They gonna be alright?” Jack asked. “They’re just … regular guys.”

 

  
Alec laughed at that. “They’re hunters and there’s nothing ordinary about that.”

 

  
Jack snorted. “Nothing ordinary about the things I heard from their room last night either.”

 

  
“Yeah, well Sam and Dean aren’t what you would call typical brothers. They’ll be fine out there. They’ve got each other.”

 

  
Jack moved out from behind Alec, sitting on the porch railing as he looked at him. Jack seemed ready to say something but another car in the drive had them both looking up.

 

  
Alec smiled as he watched the beat up pick-up truck pull in front of the house. He waited for Bobby to get out and saw the way his Pops looked Jack over, his eyes stuttering over the scar that marked him so obviously not the Winchester he otherwise looked like.

 

  
“Not sure what I expected to find when I made it home but it wasn’t this one,” Bobby said with a grin. He offered a hand to Jack as he approached them. “Good to finally meet you, Jack.”

 

  
“Pops,” Alec said, not sure how to say any of the things he needed to say just then.

 

  
“Passed Sam and Dean on the way out. Figured they were off to hustle up some trouble. Only thing those two know how to do without help.” Bobby said as he walked past them. “Well, come on in and you can fill me in. On Ben. On the crazy rumors that are circulating out of Seattle this morning. You don’t have Ben stashed around here somewhere too, do you?”

 

  
“No,” Alec said with a laugh. “His brother and sister were there. Once we got him sorted out, they’re going to take care of him and make sure he stays on the straight and narrow.”

 

  
“Not coming back on you, is it?” Bobby asked.

  
“Nope. Dean and I can still travel in Seattle without hiding.”

  
“Good.”

 

  
Bobby passed through the door and Jack was watching, wide eyed. Alec hadn’t really explained about  
Bobby. He wasn’t sure how to bring it up and from what he knew of Jack’s past, he had been living on the streets the whole time.

 

  
“Bobby took me in,” he said softly. “He kept me together in those first days, hid me from people who would have made trouble for me. He’s family Jack. You don’t have to worry.”

 

  
Jack shook his head, his smile growing as he did. “I’m not worried. Not with the way he lit up when he saw you standing there.”

 

  
“You idjits coming in or what?” Bobby yelled out the screen door and Alec just laughed.

 

  
“Coming Pops.”

 

  
They went inside and found Bobby sitting at the kitchen table with beers set out. They drank quietly  
for a few minutes and then Alec started the story. It didn’t take long since Bobby had been part  
of the initial research.

 

  
“So Ben is taken care of and you found Jack. What about the rest of it though? Don’t suppose you got all your answers just yet.” Bobby said as Alec finished.

 

  
Alec still wasn’t comfortable talking about it but Jack’s hand on the back on his neck made him relax a little. “I still have the files to go through, both from Roosevelt Asylum and Manticore, and Sam and Dean are keeping their eyes open. There’s a lot more to this story, but for now, I’ll take the win I can get and start from there.”

 

  
There was another long silence and Alec was lost in the reminder. Why had the Winchester  
brothers been targeted as genetic donors? Did Manticore know about the demon’s obsession  
with that family? Given the family history Alec couldn’t put it aside as coincidence.

 

  
The silence went on for a while, all of them lost in thought when Bobby broke it. “So how long will  
you boys be staying on?”

 

  
“Pops?”

 

  
“I’m not an idjit,” he said with a grin, letting Alec know that whatever else he was saying, he was in good spirits. “I haven’t listened to you pine for the boy for this many years to think he’d be moving on as soon as you found him. This is your home Alec and Jack is welcome here as long as you want him.”

 

  
“Pops.”

 

  
“House is always too quite without you in it. Karen always used to say it was meant for a family. Figure if you’re sticking around for a bit, and with Sam and Dean always bouncing around, might actually start to feel that way.”

 

  
“I’m not,” Alec hesitated because he hated to open himself up so wide, but maybe Jack would understand then everything that Bobby was to him. “I’m not going back to Europe.”

 

  
Bobby frowned at him but it wasn’t anger, just concern. “When did you decide that?”

  
Alec thought about it, remembering the last time Bobby had gone to his boarding school to see him. Even though it wasn’t conscious at the time, Alec knew that was when it had happened. “Last time you came to visit. It was the first time I really knew what home was. You walked in the door and there it was. I knew it wasn’t a place so much as it was us. And my coming and going was killing us both. I decided then to just plow through, to work through the summers and breaks. The next time I came home, I wanted it to be the last time I made the trip. I tried for fourteen years to get you to wise up, Pops. You’re stuck with me now.”

  
  
“Yeah, I guess I am. Idjit.”

 

  
Alec laughed and took a deep breath. “What do you think, Jack? Think you could like it here?”

  
  
“Nice place out in the country? Things to tinker with? Yeah, I could do this.”

  
  
Bobby shook his head. “Gonna have to train him up. Can’t have a civilian in the house. And he’s gonna be hell to get trained up if he’s anything like his donor.”

 

  
Jack obviously didn’t know how to take Bobby’s manner of speaking and Alec just laughed. Yeah, he probably would be hell to train. Fight him on every day thing because a lot of hunting was about instinct and a lot was about ritual and the rituals screwed with his Manticore trained abilities to no end. It would be worth it though.

  
  
“Feels good to have you back for good, Son,” Bobby said softly.  
  
Alec smiled, unafraid to let his love for Bobby show in his eyes. “Yeah, it feels good. With everything that’s happened it feels like… homecoming.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to the mods of the[](http://darkangel-bb.livejournal.com/profile)[darkangel_bb](http://darkangel-bb.livejournal.com/) for this challenge! And thank you so much to [](http://lazydaisyjax.livejournal.com/profile)[lazydaisyjax](http://lazydaisyjax.livejournal.com/) for the awesome art! Please head over to her post and send her much deserved love for this!


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